Best speaker cable length?

Bvan Bronze Member Username: Bvan Cape Town, Copenhagen,... Post Number: 94 Registered: Jun-05	Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 20:34 GMT i was at the naim dealer the other day and asked about the best lenth for speaker cable. i had always thought shorter the better as i've often seen photos of high-end systems with monoblocks sitting next to the speaker, to get speaker cable lenth as short as possible i assumed. but i think i read somewhere naim using 3.5m runs of their own cable, something to do with impedance, which is why i asked. but the dealer says the best lenth is 4.5m, or something near that. says he went to a demonstration by nordost(i think it was) at their factory in scandanavia and that the listning tests they ran came up with the 4.5m(?) conclusion. sounds like b.s to me. is he just trying to make me buy more cable? it would be nice if there was no cost to longer runs(apart from financial) as i would like to have my system at the back or side of the room so as not to have to look at something that is starting to resemble the cockpit of a boing 747. thanks for any input b.
Jan Vigne Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigne Dallas, TX Post Number: 7896 Registered: May-04	Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 20:45 GMT Naim does include, or at least did at one time, the inductance of their speaker cable into how they design their amplifiers. I assume the dealer was suggesting the length of cable should be based upon the dimension of the longest wavelength the cable will be expected to pass. This has always fallen into the dots on the wall and frozen fuses camp for me. Until the dealer can offer demonstrable, repeatable proof of this claim, I wouldn't rush to buy the longer cables unless they suit your system layout.
Adrian Carreon Bronze Member Username: Dfantom32 Irvine, CA USA Post Number: 64 Registered: Feb-06	Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 22:19 GMT Jan, Sorry for intruding but just wondering on the topic in this thread...meaning the shorter the cable the better or it depends on what kind of cable that your going to get? Sorry for my ignorance jan. One more thing I did search some topic about the speaker wires but it seems that I'm kinda lost so probably you can give me some brief inputs on this, what I mean is does it matter if you get expensive cables let say around $300 for 8ft/pr(terminated) against $69 50ft (unterminated)? Thanks!
Stu Pitt Gold Member Username: Stu_pitt Irvington, New York USA Post Number: 1019 Registered: May-05	Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 23:11 GMT Adrian, You going to open a can of worms that has been opened many times before. Some say there are differences, others say there aren't. As long as they are the correct size (guage) for the application, I don't believe there are audible differences. Others claim to hear differences, which I don't have a problem with; to each his/her own. Here'a an article written by one of the head enginees at McIntosh, which is a high-end no non-sense audio company - http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm
Jan Vigne Gold Member Username: Jan_b_vigne Dallas, TX Post Number: 7897 Registered: May-04	Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 23:17 GMT The cost for the manufacturer or dealer to terminate a speaker cable adds significantly to your final price. Two points to consider. The "sound" of a solder joint is only as good as the person who made it. And, there is nothing that sounds as good as a well terminated bare wire connection. First, if you don't know how to solder, don't try soldering speaker cables as your first effort. It takes a hot iron and a good heatsink; or in some cases a soldering pot to do the job effectively. Good solder is also expensive and there's no point in not using good solder. If you make a lousy connection it will soon begin to show and, in some cases, can be dangerous to the equipment. So, for the most part, letting someone else terminate your cables is worth the money. The best termination is a gas tight bare wire connection. That's difficult to manage on most speaker cables; and, if the connection is not totally gas tight, the cable will begin to oxidize which will affect the sound quality. Therefore, it's usually wise to let the maker/dealer terminate your speaker cables with an appropriately sized spade lug. The lugs can be cleaned easily if they oxidize. Bare wire can only be cut off and stripped back when it oxidizes. If the spade is soldered properly, you should hear no real difference between bare wire and the small bit of additional easy-to-clean copper. The quality of your cables is worth an investment of some reasonable amount of money. Good cables will almost always make an improvement in a system. If not now, then at least as the cables age. How much you should invest is purely your deicison. There are some very good budget line cables and most dealers will allow some sort of audition period for cables. If the dealer won't work with you, find another dealer. Generally cables should be as short as possible. Leave enough slack to allow removing a piece of equipment from your rack without pulling on the cables. How short is short enough depends on the lay out of your system.
Adrian Carreon Bronze Member Username: Dfantom32 Irvine, CA USA Post Number: 65 Registered: Feb-06	Posted on Wednesday, March 15, 2006 - 23:24 GMT Stu, Thats the thing I'm kinda hesitant to ask this about cables 'coz I do know it will be big issue(i think) on this but my interest is just a brief info on this and from there I will decide what to do. Anyway, thanks for your inputs. Jan, Thanks for your quick response on my question at least I know where to go and what to get. Thanks again guys for your help!
Bvan Bronze Member Username: Bvan Cape Town, Copenhagen,... Post Number: 95 Registered: Jun-05	Posted on Thursday, March 16, 2006 - 11:07 GMT thanks for the reply jan. actually the dealer was basing his claim on what he claimed he had heard, rather than any (psudo)scientific theory. i dont really believe that anyone can even distinguish between cables brands in abx tests, so this claim seems somewhat specious to me. so, barring using a naim amp, no ones got any reason why 5m runs would be worse than 2m? i would think that, in theory, a cable can only degrade a signal (granted, maybe the wolds best cable might leave it unchanged). but as no one has as yet come forward with a reason to go short, i'll assume for the time being than i got nothing to worry about in using a longer run? cheers b.
Frank Abela Gold Member Username: Frank_abela Berkshire UK Post Number: 1242 Registered: Sep-04	Posted on Thursday, March 16, 2006 - 16:47 GMT Bevan Jan is right that Naim take into account their cable as part of the end of their amp design - except with the 5-series. The Nait5/i and 150/x have a buffered output stage so they are compatible with almost any cable there is. That said, I have tried several cables with 5 series amps and the Naim cables sound best overall in my view. Higher end Naim amps do require the minimum 3.5m a side Naim cable to provide the right inductance to the amp. Also, for this reason biwiring (which I have seen discussed hotly elsewhere) is a BAD idea with higher end Naim amps since the electrical characteristics caused by biwiring can cause the Naim amp to go into oscillation and eventual failure. It's unusual but it's possible since there is no buffer in the output stage of the better Naim amps. Naim amps were originally designed with a 10m run per channel as optimum, resulting in the minimum 3.5m requirement. This rule of thumb has stuck up until the present day. So in fact, the optimum for a Naim amp is 10m/side. Some people claim they can hear the difference with longer lengths. Me personally, I don't think so. As to weird speaker cables, try to steer clear of capacitative cables such as Goertz or Electrofluidics. A long run of this can act as a big power sink which would cause a Naim amp to dump its current into the cable in one hit. I've shut down a Naim 250 in just a few minutes with that type of cable in my time. Other 'normal' amps have buffered output stages (Naim claim this results in detrimental sound and have only added this in the 5-series because of market forces) which allow the amps to be more compatible with other cables without adverse reactions. Theoretically, you could then run line-level signals as the long lengths and locate the power amps next to the speakers. The leakage from speaker-level signals should theoretically be far higher than those of line-level interconnects. Also, line-level interconnects are an almost uniformly sensible size whereas some speaker cables can be very intrusive in a room, so there are aesthetic gains to be made with this arrangement sometimes. Regards, Frank.

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